Last update - 00:00 31/01/2007
Attorney: Katsav plans to move out of president's residence
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
President Moshe Katsav plans to move out of the President's Residence while he is unable to fulfill his duties due to the draft indictment against him, his attorney, David Libai, said Tuesday.
According to Libai, Katsav went to the President's Residence in Jerusalem on Monday only in order to organize his departure, pack his things and say good-bye to the workers, but he plans to spend the coming months, until Attorney General Menachem Mazuz makes a final decision on whether to indict him, at his private home in Kiryat Malakhi.
Having lived in the President's Residence for six and a half years, Libai added, Katsav might need to return occasionally to collect personal items that he forgot on Monday, but he has no intention of residing there during the period of his "temporary incapacity" to serve as president, Libai said.
The President's Residence said that other than Monday night's brief visit, Katsav has not been there for five days: Immediately after the Knesset approved his decision to suspend himself, he moved back to Kiryat Malakhi.
Libai's announcement followed a letter sent by Mazuz to Knesset legal adviser Nurit Elstein, in which the attorney general wrote that Katsav may not remain in the President's Residence during his period of temporary incapacity. This letter was "necessary," Mazuz said, "given the reports that the president intends to continue residing in the President's Residence in Jerusalem during the temporary cessation of his tenure, something that does not accord with the law's goal of engendering a temporary cessation of his tenure in the wake of a criminal investigation." The President's Residence said that it has not received a copy of this letter.
The letter also asked Elstein to draft a formal legal opinion explaining the ramifications of the Knesset House Committee's decision to approve Katsav's temporary incapacity. Such an opinion, wrote Mazuz, should stipulate that Katsav must vacate the President's Residence as long as this incapacity lasts, but may continue to receive his salary and use his government car.
Elstein said in response that she would prepare such an opinion in the coming days.
A senior Knesset source charged that the House Committee "made a serious mistake" by not itself including such details in its decision. He added that Elstein should have advised the committee to do so.
"Even now, it's not too late," the source continued. "The House Committee should be convened promptly to make a series of decisions that would give substance and meaning to the decision on the president's temporary incapacity."
Justice Ministry officials said that Mazuz had been stunned to learn of Katsav's return to the President's Residence on Monday, as it had not occurred to him that the president would choose to spend the period of his suspension there.
Katsav's departure from the President's Residence is not merely a matter of good form, the officials added; it also has practical significance, since one of the women who accused Katsav of sexually harassing her still works in the residence and several other residence employees are slated to serve as prosecution witnesses on charges that Katsav obstructed justice and harassed a witness. Indeed, Mazuz said two months ago that Katsav's continued tenure at the residence during the police investigation was making it difficult to complete the probe, "since some of the people being questioned, and some of the witnesses, are employees of the President's Residence."
Mazuz's office also replied on Tuesday to a letter from attorney Zion Amir, another member of Katsav's defense team, in which Amir accused the police and prosecution of leaking details of the draft indictment against Katsav to the media. "The attorney general denounces this unacceptable phenomenon and regards it with great severity," wrote Mazuz's aide, attorney Raz Nizri, about the leak.
Nizri said that Mazuz had ordered the law enforcement agencies to take great care not to leak any details of the indictment until a final decision is made on whether to file it. He also claimed that the supposed details of the indictment published in the media to date have been inaccurate and incorrect.
Gideon Alon and Amiram Barkat contributed to this report.